Discover the Pattern of Light and Shadow chapter 5
Now the image has ten different tones circled.
These tones range from the brightest (white) to
the darkest (black) on the head. Some of these
transitions can be very subtle. The more variation
of tone you use, the higher the level of accuracy
you will achieve in your representational drawing.
The ten different tones are identified in ascending
order from lightest to darkest in this image, with
lightest being 1 to the darkest being 10. Can you
see the range of gray shades that you can obtain
from your graphite pencil? The lightest area can be
seen on the tip of the nose. A nose usually dis-
plays the lightest area of tone, as it is the one fea-
ture that sticks out farthest from the face.
Consequently, it is closest to the light source. The
inner corner of the mouth is receiving the least
amount of light, so a dark tone is used there. The
darkest area of the face is located in the nostril.
This area receives the least amount of light on the
face, as the light cannot enter enough of this space
to light it up.
Notice that the artist has also drawn out the
shapes around the eye in the light. While squint-
ing, he saw two large shapes of shadow: one
shape at the outer corner of the eye and
one shape at the inner corner of the eye.